Local Blogs

About this blog: I grew up in Palo Alto and now live in Mountain View with my husband, daughter and two corgis. After about a decade grappling with the law, first as a law student at UC Berkeley and then as a litigator around the Bay Area, I left ... (More)

About this blog: I grew up in Palo Alto and now live in Mountain View with my husband, daughter and two corgis. After about a decade grappling with the law, first as a law student at UC Berkeley and then as a litigator around the Bay Area, I left the legal world to write full time. I married another writer and in 2012 gave birth to my daughter. During that earlier decade (in which I was also trying to write novels and poetry), I had almost no off hours. Now in some ways, all my hours are off hours because I am either writing or watching the world for something to write about. Or, more accurately, none of my hours are off-hours are because I still try to get as much mileage as I can out of every minute - alongside New York City, Silicon Valley is the ultimate work hard, play hard culture. In this blog, I'll be writing about what I, and maybe you, do in Mountain View in the so-called off hours for fun. (Hide)

First Impression of Chennai Kings

Uploaded: Jul 30, 2014

Chennai Kings is a small restaurant just finishing its soft run over at 856 El Camino Real in Mountain Viewits hard opening is next week. The restaurant is in an unassuming space that faces El Camino. It has lacquered wooden tables and chair, twinkle lights, black and white pictures of cricket players and a big screen television that was showing cricket games both times I went. The restaurant was not busy during its soft open and it was clean. My only gripe was the pulse of dance music during the weekday lunch hour (it had a pleasant low-key ambiance during dinner).

I learned of Chennai Kings because my family membersTamilian Americans have taken a shine to the place and it wasn't hard to see why. The food I've had there has been solid, authentic genuinely spicy Chettinad cuisine. To start, I recommend the pepper chicken sukka, which was succulent marinated chicken in a thick spicy gravy made of crushed peppercorns, chili, ginger-garlic paste, coriander powder, and other spices topped with slices of red onion and cilantro leaves. Also excellent to start was the Marina Beach Milagai Bhaji, which is a set of six green chilis covered with chickpea batter and fried.

Another delicious item there was the parotta, a fluffy layered flatbread, with a fragrant vegetable korma. My brother loves the Madras Mutton Masala, a goat curry dish with onion sauce.

The menu is a little bit quirky, with items that could be common to restaurants in Chennai but which I'm unfamiliar with, such as enormous square pesto dosas (exactly what it sounds likean extremely crispy dosa with pesto inside it instead of the conventional masala potatoes). I wasn't crazy about the taste of pesto with dosa, although the dosa itself was delectable.

Perhaps most exciting for me was that this is a restaurant that hasn't tamed its spice for non-Indian tastebuds. It's kind of rare, even in Silicon Valley with its large Indian and Indian-American population, to get delicious food that has the level of spice and the type of food that you might get in Chennai. At one point, Mountain View was home to an outpost of the chain restaurant Saravana Bhavan, now in Sunnyvale. Further along on El Camino Real used to be Udupi Palace. The fancy North Indian food in the area concentrates on cuisine in central and north India. The price point is reasonable for the portion size, quality and location near Castro Streetexpect to spend about $25-30 for two people.

Chennai Kings has a wider range of South Indian non-vegetarian optionschicken, fish and goatmore flair and more hospitality and warmer service than most of the other Indian restaurants in Mountain View. If you're not Indian, but have an adventurous palate, I'm pretty sure you'll like this spot. With its hard opening next week, it's still a little rough around the edges, but this is a promising start and I hope it will be around for a while.

On another note, this is my last blog post for the Mountain View Voice for the foreseeable future. This is the right time for me to focus on my family and work, and less on leisure pursuits. I hope that those of you that have communicated with me outside this space keep in touch and continue to let me know about new restaurant openings, movies, music events, and books that you think might interest me. Thank you to the Mountain View Voice, Embarcadero Media and to the readers of this blog for making it a fun and illuminating year of blogging.

Posted by Mark Weiss,
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood,
on Jul 31, 2014 at 7:50 am

Ok, Anita, since i am a music producer and your reader, I have to ask you, personally, and digressing slightly from the Tamil restaurant you describe, do you prefer M.I.A or Bhi Bhiman?

Also, now the Aquarius has a double feature (separate admissions), two movies that to me are about my generation of music and music people, "Boyhood" by Richard Linklater and "Begin Again" by Jon Carney.

And I've done it again, atomized into four or five topics, like I did in discussing, under your post, Llweyn Davis and 1961, "the upside down year" -- I was actually writing indirectly about Tom Parkinson the U.C. professor and that wave of McCarthyism mixed with bloodlust.

Bhi Bhiman is a Sri Lankan who went to Paly High, has been reviewed favorably in New York Times -- but never Palo Alto Weekly -- and is married to Palo Altan Katie Ross. Katie also works for a firm that manages the more popular Josh Ritter -- who incidentally has his book favorably reviewed by Stephen King -- and is run by a Gunn grad, Josh's college classmate, Oberlin, and his former drummer.

Mark - tough question. They're both fantastic artists. I have to say that I was very taken with M.I.A. back in 2006/2007- her innovation and her influences (Boney M, the Pixies, Bjork) are my speed. But Matangi didn't interest me - maybe I'm getting old? - and I don't listen to her work at all anymore. I like Bhi Bhiman's voice and music - my husband and father really love his work and we've been thinking about going to one of his shows, but it's a little tough with a toddler. I didn't know he went to Paly - I thought he was from St. Louis. I actually know Darius (who manages Josh Ritter) - he and I went to high school together, and I've known his lovely wife since childhood.

Boyhood and Begin Again - both pretty great in a year of not-so-great movies.

Look out for I AM CHINA, which is a book by Xiaolu Guo that is going to be released early this fall. I just read an advance copy, and I think based on your liking of The Flamethrowers and being a music person, it might interest you.

Posted by Mark Weiss,
a resident of Professorville,
on Jul 31, 2014 at 7:29 pm

I met Darius Zelkha when he and Josh played Public Theatre Joe's Pub in New York on the same night as my then-client Mark "Stew" Stewart who is no sukka, and later created a Broadway play on his life "Passing Strange" I think I mentioned Bhi to Mark around that time, in 2004 or so.

Posted by Mark Weiss,
a resident of Downtown North,
on Aug 6, 2014 at 9:38 amMark Weiss is a registered user.

We did eat there Sunday and enjoyed the chicken dish more than the lamb marrow soap. Also, great chance to catch up on Cricket action, on two screens. Friendly staff, almost over-staffed.

Plus, I ran into See Reddy at council and urged him to check it out.

Interesting conversation starter: have you tried the new Tamil-nadu in Mountain View?

My own blog will have some photos of our meal. I will have to read this more carefully, Anita's post, and try the food again. I said, to Reddy: I like Anita's movie and book recommendations so tried this cuisine based on that.

Hi Mark - feel free to post your blog link over here so people who read this can see photos. Should have noted that my brother's tastes and mine are different - e.g. he likes heartier, less subtle dishes. Glad you liked the chicken though. I've been meaning to go again and add any dishes I liked to these comments, but have been cooped up with the flu. Thanks for your comment.

Posting an item on Town Square is simple and requires no registration. Just complete this form and hit "submit" and your topic will appear online.
Please be respectful and truthful in your postings so Town Square will continue to be a thoughtful gathering place for sharing community information
and opinion. All postings are subject to our TERMS OF USE, and may be deleted if deemed inappropriate by our staff.

We prefer that you use your real name, but you may use any "member" name you wish.